Lewis Owen has been
scraping out icy fragments of history’s truth from one of the most glaciated
regions on Earth for the past 25 years. His frequent excursions to Tibet and
the Himalayas have led the University of Cincinnati professor of geology to
some cold, hard facts. Owen knows climate change
is immortal — fluctuating across millennia, patiently building toward moments
when circumstances are ripe for apocalypse. It was true thousands of years ago,
when rapid climate change had profound effects on landscapes and the creatures
that lived on them. That scenario could be true again, if the past is ignored.
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“We’re interested in
how glaciers change over time as climate has changed, because we’re in a
changing climate at the moment, dominantly because of increased human
activity,” Owen says. “From
understanding past glacial changes, we can understand how glaciers may change
in the future.”
Owen, head of UC’s
Department of Geology, is among a team of researchers at the university who
have been gathering and studying years of data on Tibet and the Himalayas.
Members of the group contributed to two research papers that will be published
in the March 15 edition (Vol. 88) of Quaternary Science Reviews, an
international, multidisciplinary research and review journal.
BIG DIFFERENCES IN HUGE
GLACIERS
Glaciers are fickle beasts.
They don’t all respond to climate change in the same way. Some recede while
others surge, and these changes can have a profound effect on landscapes — at
times to dangerous effect. Glacial lakes, which swell as glaciers melt, can
drain in catastrophic fashion, known as glacial lake flood outburst. Owen says consequences of such outbursts can be severe,
wiping out entire villages or ruining acres of farmland. Comparing glacial
areas and anticipating melt is a complex problem but one that underscores the
importance of his research, Owen says.
“Glaciers will vary
from one side of the mountain range to the next very differently. As part of
our research, we’re building up a standard scheme that people can use to
compare their glaciated areas,” Owen says.
The environmental stakes
are as high as the mountains themselves. Tibet and the Himalayas are nearly
one-third the size of the contiguous 48 U.S. states, and nearly a billion
people live in the mountains’ shadow. Waters from the glaciers flow into the
Indo-Gangetic Plain, a fertile region including parts of Bangladesh, India,
Nepal and Pakistan, and bordered to the north by China. The source water for
some of the world’s largest rivers — the Indus, Ganges, Yangtze and Yellow — is
derived from these glaciers.
Read more at the University of Cincinnati
News.
Mountains-scape
in Everest National Park image via Shutterstock.